Karl Rankl - Compositions and Recordings

Compositions and Recordings

As a composer, Rankl wrote eight symphonies, a string quartet, and 60 songs. He also wrote an opera, Deirdre of the Sorrows (based on J.M. Synge's play), which won one of the prizes offered by the Arts Council for the Festival of Britain in 1951. Rankl's reputation today however, lies almost entirely on his work as a conductor. His opera has never been performed and none of his music has ever been published.

Rankl made few recordings for the gramophone. In the late 1940s, for Decca he conducted Beethoven's First Symphony, Schubert's Fourth Symphony, Brahms's Fourth Symphony and Dvořák's New World Symphony; Dvořák's Cello Concerto (with Maurice Gendron) and Violin Concerto (with Ida Haendel); a Bach Cantata (Schlage Doch, BWV 53) and overtures and other shorter pieces by Beethoven¸ Cimarosa, Dvořák, Rossini, Smetana, Richard Strauss, Wagner and Weber.

Rankl recorded excerpts from the operatic repertory with the bass-baritone Paul Schöffler in Sarastro's arias from Die Zauberflöte, the "Wahnmonolog" from Die Meistersinger, the closing scene of Die Walküre, and Iago's arias from Otello. With his Covent Garden chorus and orchestra he recorded choruses from Die Zauberflöte, Rigoletto, Carmen, Il trovatore and Pagliacci, though only the first two of the five were released on disc.